


Things We Lost

by glackedandmullered



Series: When Tomorrow Comes [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: amnesia michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3098501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glackedandmullered/pseuds/glackedandmullered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Same conversation, different day. (continuation of How I Miss Yesterday wherein Michael loses his memory every time he sleeps)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things We Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I have actually never seen 50 first dates, if you want to know what inspired this it was a movie called 'Remember Sunday' it's really cute, you should watch it.
> 
> Thanks for the great feedback on the first part, thought I would throw a couple more ideas in. If you want to prompt me for this verse or discuss headcanons please visit my tumblr, same name as here :)

Kerry Shawcross had been Michael’s friend since fourth grade. 

They had bonded over Pokemon and the newest game on their SNES. It took - as it is with kids - less than a week for them to become fast friends, inseparable even. 

Therein stood the reason Kerry’s existence was ingrained deep into Michael’s long-term memory, making him the first person the amnesiac thought of when it came to calling in the morning. Kerry was used to it by now, his phone always near him, on loud so he never missed a call; and the calls kept coming. Almost like clockwork at 9am Michael’s personalised ringtone would echo through the air, and Kerry had to start the process of explaining everything over again. 

This particular morning Kerry chose an iHop for their daily meeting - Tuesday was usually a ‘Joe’s’ day but it had been packed to the rafters when they had driven past, so he forwent his normal routine and settled with his Saturday choice. 

Greeting the workers, who recognized him by name now, he gestured for a dumbstruck Michael to wait at the table in the corner - their usual but Michael didn’t know that - and didn’t even need to ask before his regular order was placed in front of him. Fuck, he loved good memories sometimes. 

“Why did I leave Jersey?” Michael asked around a mouthful of food which he had shovelled into his mouth the second the plate had hit the table. 

The same line of questions. 

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Sometimes a new one would crop up, taking Kerry by surprise, like ‘Where does my brother live now?’ or ‘do I still like coffee?’ but otherwise Kerry could practically reply to Michael’s questions without the words even having to leave the mans mouth. 

“You thought being somewhere new would get you used to waking up in unfamiliar surroundings.” 

“Did it?”

“Not yet, no.”

“How long has it been?”

“You moved here three years ago this summer.” Michael nodded, taking another bite of his pancake stack. 

“When did i meet my...boyfriends?” That was a new one, Michael never brought up the guys this early on in the conversation. 

“Uh...you all got together around 2 years ago.” 

Michael dropped his head into his hands, groaning as he shifted through every memory he could grab hold of and yet found nothing useful, nothing at all. He couldn’t remember how they had all met, how they had all gotten together, not even their first conversation. 

“I don’t remember them at all.” He groaned finally, slumping in his seat sadly. 

Kerry swallowed a forkful of pancakes and swapped his - now empty - plate with Michael’s, knowing from experience that his friend wasn’t going to eat anymore of the mountain, 

“You’ll recognize the name Brown Man, you usually do,” he said. 

Michael’s head snapped up, something he could remember for the first time that day, “The...gamer?” memories surfaced, flashes of talking through a headset while he was shot down time after time on screen, “We played Halo together.”

Kerry nodded encouragingly, “You still do, that’s Ray. You had your accident before you managed to see his face but you did know him before.” The image of the scruffy black hair and glasses shot to the forefront of his mind.

“My favorite…” He whispered. 

“He still has that on the picture, huh?” Kerry mused, the last forkful of food passing his lips. 

“Coffee?” Michael glanced up to see a young waitress with black hair scraped up into a ponytail and an arm full of decorative tattoo’s holding out a pot of the steaming liquid and gesturing to the empty mugs in the centre of the table.

“Good morning, Michael.” She said with a sweet smile as Kerry held up his mug for her to fill. She knew him, but he had absolutely no clue who she was. 

“Uh hi…” he trailed off, unable to pull a name out of his jumbled head. 

“Lyssa,” she supplied, still grinning. 

“Right, Lyssa, of course. Sorry.” He said apologetically but she waved him off, filling up his mug about halfway. 

“It’s okay, I know.” She winked before sauntering away, moving instead to another table where more customers had started to appear. 

Great, he thought, everyone knew he had a screw loose and he couldn’t even prepare himself for the feeling of anxiety that bubbled up in his chest. 

Michael’s mind was racing. He swore he could _feel_ the memories there, like they were pressing at an invisible barrier, but that forcefield was never going to come crashing down, the memories remaining trapped just out of his reach. 

“I don’t understand this.” 

Kerry laid one hand over Michael’s larger one, comforting and grounding for him, “That’s okay. It’s why I’m here.”

His mouth stopping it’s chewing motion, Michael froze, “You moved here too,” he whispered with the realisation. It hadn’t clicked before, but of course it was unusual that Kerry was there too. 

Kerry scoffed, “Of course I did. I couldn’t let my amnesiac best friend go off into the world on his own now could I?”

A wave of guilt washed over Michael, and the fork dropped to the table.

Noticing the sudden shift in Michael’s expression, Kerry jumped to reassure him, “We’re square though, dude. I got an awesome job out of it.”

Curiosity nagged at him, “Where do you work?”

Glad for the switch in subject, Kerry grinned, “With you, and your boyfriends,” he paused, “at Roosterteeth.”

Michael’s jaw dropped. 

“Roosterteeth? I work at fucking roosterteeth? No way!”

No matter where the rest of his memories had disappeared off to, that name still meant something to him. They made his favorite web series, he’d been a member of the site since 2005, incredible. 

Kerry beamed brightly, “I never get sick of seeing you face when I tell you that, you’re like a kid on fucking Christmas morning.” 

“What do I do?” Michael asked excitedly, his heart racing. 

“Videos. You have a show called Rage Quit, yelling at games basically.” Kerry explained, “We found that letting you vent your anger through the medium of youtube helped a lot on a day to day basis.” 

“I got a job out of that?” His voice was so loud that other patrons were craning their heads to see what was going on and Michael had to physically reign himself in, much to Kerry's amusement. 

“Sh Sh shhh," he giggled,"Yes you do, oh, here-” Kerry stuck his hands in his pockets, rummaging around before pulling out his phone and a pair of headphones, “Put these on, I have to show you something.” 

Michael shuffled over in his seat until he was a little closer to Kerry while pushing the buds into his ears, he watched the man’s fingers move swiftly over the lock screen. He recognized the brand, but the design seemed so foreign to him, seemed technology had continued to move on while Michael stood still. Dimly he remembered unlocking his own phone without a code.

A video was preloaded on the browser and, by the way Kerry swiped his finger across the screen to reset the timestamp, Michael guessed Kerry had shown him this video before. Possibly countless times. 

The animation was unusual, a style Michael hadn’t seen before but the opening credits were stylish, the theme song catchy, and he watched intently, wondering why Kerry had been so excited to show him. Before the titles could end, Kerry had moved the timestamp a little further across, mumbling under his breath to himself as he finally settled on a particular point.

Two characters - a blonde boy with an open shirt and jeans, and a blue haired one decked out in a stylish red jacket - glided into view, walking down the side of a building. What caught him off guard almost immediately was the sound of the voices. He watched with widening eyes as a voice that sounded way too much like his own drifted through the headphones, the sound coming from the blonde haired character on screen. He took the phone from Kerry with shaking hands, looking up at him with shock in his eyes as his best friends voice filled the space between the animated lips of the other boy in the scene. 

Kerry’s eyes were glittering while Michael gripped the phone tight, calculating the fact that, yes, that was definitely his voice talking to him from the video. The scene moved on but Michael kept staring, mouth gaping open like a fish, and Kerry took the phone, laughing as the headphones slid from Michael’s ears. 

“It’s called rwby,” he explained as he slid the phone back into his pocket, “it’s a legit anime that we make. Your character’s called Sun.” 

Michael closed and opened his mouth, continuing to imitate a fish until he could choke out the words, “I’m...a voice actor?” 

Kerry nodded excitedly. 

“Wow.” Michael whispered in awe, "how did that..." 

Kerry shrugged, “It’s difficult, and sometimes we can’t get you to cooperate, but some days when you make videos it feels like you never forgot anything, like this was all just a bad nightmare.” 

Shaking his head, looking like he was attempting to dispel thoughts from his mind, Kerry closed his eyes and let out a slow breath.

“Of course I’m kidding myself,” he said slowly, pain too clear in his voice, “I know your memory’s not going to come back.” 

Another burning question jumped to the front of Michael’s thoughts, “have we tried to- you know, get it back?” 

Kerry nodded sadly, “Yeah, it didn’t work.” It was said so bluntly that Michael didn't really feel like pushing, he would forget the answer tomorrow anyway. 

“Oh.”

“Some day maybe. Until then we’ll just keep this up,” Kerry said. 

Michael frowned, cocking his head in thought, “Did we do this yesterday?” he asked, to which Kerry wiped the sad expression off his face and plastered on a smile in it’s place. 

“Aha, yeah. Different location, same conversation.”

“So every day, you meet me in the morning and explain my life.”

“Well sometimes the others take a turn but we find you respond better to a...familiar face.” Kerry replied, raising the - quickly cooling - mug of coffee to his lips. 

Michael nodded, understanding and yet not at the same time. The coffee was cold and bitter on his tongue as he gulped down the last dregs in the mug, he couldn't even remember if he liked sweetener in the drink. Pathetic. 

“Two years…” The amnesiac mused suddenly, fingers tapping a rhythm on the table. Kerry hummed in question. 

“Two years and I… this morning uhh-” he clicked his fingers, searching his brain for a name, “the one with the mustache?” 

“Geoff,” Kerry supplied quickly, and Michael huffed in frustration, nodding. 

“Yeah Geoff, he wasn’t there this morning when I went down to meet them.” Kerry nodded but didn't say a word, letting Michael complete his thought. He only got so many of them each day, it was only fair. 

“I don’t know what his voice sounds like.” Michael mumbled, eyes turned down to the table and the syrup congealing on Kerry's plate. 

“Oh, you do," Kerry replied softly, "this would have been a hell of a lot easier if you’d paid more attention before the accident." 

Michael examined him warily, expression questioning. 

"He does the voice for Grif in Red vs Blue.” Kerry offered, and Michaels eyes bugged open comically. 

“I’m dating _Grif_?” In three simple words, Michael’s voice shot up four octaves to an inhuman screech. 

Kerry rolled his eyes, looking suspiciously bored all of a sudden, practically ignoring Michael’s enthusiasm, “You’re dating Geoff, but yes, technically you are dating Grif’s voice.” 

“Shit," Michael whispered, "like...shit." 

“But then tomorrow he won’t mean anything to me again?” Kerry nodded again but this time he wasn’t even looking at Michael, he was stirring his coffee. 

Sighing, Michael slumped back in his seat, “We’ve had this conversation before haven’t we.” He said, fixing Kerry with a intent stare. 

Kerry nodded in response and pulled his wallet out, dropping a couple of bills onto the table as a tip. 

“Sorry.”

The man waved a hand dismissively as he lifted his jacket off the back of the seat and slung it onto his back, “Hey, I signed up for this and I don’t intend to quit.” 

Smiling thankfully, Michael pushed his own seat in as he stood up, “So, what do we normally do now?”

Kerry cocked his head in thought, “Well it’s Tuesday, so either work or home if you don’t feel up to it.”

Michael thought about it carefully, weighing up pro’s and con’s which he was sure he had calculated a hundred times before, “I think I’ll go in, I’d like to meet Geoff.” he decided finally. 

Kerry grinned. 

“Good choice. Just-” He cut himself off, a giggle blooming under his breath, “just try not to be a fangirl, remember you’re dating him. He isn’t just your favorite RvB character, okay?”

Michael looked up, mortified, “have I really…?”

The young man nodded, grinning too strongly, “Quite a lot actually.” 

Michael blushed, shaking his head with embarrassment, “Get it together, Michael.” 

"See you soon, Michael!" Lyssa called after him as they made their way to the door. 

"Yeah," Michael called back sadly, knowing that even if he did see her again, he wouldn't even recognize her face, "see you, Lyssa." 

Another day, another face.


End file.
